The Peers In Action club at Pontiac Township High School recently held a poster contest for grade school students in Livingston County to promote Spread The Word To End The Word, a national campaign sponsored by Special Olympics to end the use of the R-word (retard).

Co-president of Peers In Action Chloe Boden applied and received a grant through the Special Olympics’ Project Unify to hold a contest and send letters to county principals in hopes of getting schools to participate. Across six schools, more than 265 students participated in the contest.

Co-presidents Boden and Adam Shelton, members Taylor Lind, Lexi Feddern and Kayla Kohlmeier, and club sponsor and Life Skills teacher Laura Baumgardner, visited schools to explain the contest.

“Members talked about the hurtful effects of the R-word and the new R-word — Respect,” said Baumgardner. “Our members also showed last year's video, ‘I'm Eric.’”

Each student making a poster was rewarded with a wristband. The winner from each school received the wristband, T-shirt, and a $10 gift card. The grand prize winner, Lincoln School second grader Addisyn Holzhauer, received a wristband, T-shirt and a $25 gift card.

“We thought it was really creative,” Baumgardner exclaimed. “We put up quite a few of the posters in the commons.”

They are also planning their first Run for Respect event to be held April 13.

Run for Respect will be a 5K and 1-mile fun run that begins and ends at PTHS. All proceeds will benefit Special Olympics and Peers-in-Action.

“I am really hoping to get a lot of area support,” said Baumgardner.

That support has been evidenced by the influence of videos used at the assemblies.

The “You Abuse the Word” video, which debuted at the March 6 assembly, has since received more than 3,900 views on YouTube. Baumgardner has been thankful for all the positive feedback she has received. She noted that the video has not made its debut on the Spread the Word webpage, but should appear soon.

“The Special Olympics received so many videos,” said Baumgardner. “They didn’t want to put them all out at the same time. They wanted to make sure each video received proper recognition.”

Overall, Baumgardner was extremely pleased with the students and staff throughout the day of the event. She felt students and faculty were supportive and when the video was shown, the auditorium was completely silent.

“Everybody seemed to be engaged in the video and we felt that was great,” said Baumgardner. Invited guest speaker Gabriel Gadfly “wrote a letter to Superintendent Jon Kilgore thanking him for allowing (Gadfly) to attend the day. He also expressed how impressed he was with the student body at PTHS. I think it’s cool to have somebody come from Alabama and our students treat them so well.”